The Gong Blog

And Now This Important Communications Issue: The Exclamation Point

My eyes caught an article
online the other day that included this sentence: “Officials also
stated that an innocent 35-year-old passerby who found himself caught up in a
long-winded dispute over use of the serial, or Oxford, comma had died of a
self-inflicted gunshot wound.”

My first reaction was, “damn, so it’s come to that.” I know many
people whose ardor toward their preferred rules of grammar and usage is
consummate. But it’s hard to believe such passions would end so tragically. Only
upon reading further did I realize I was hoodwinked again by a satirical piece
from The Onion. Even so, isn’t there
truth behind so much humor?

Which brings me to a usage debate that, as a traditionalist, I
appear to be on the losing end of: the cascading use of the exclamation point,
that vertical line-dot punctuation mark that dates back to 14th-century
Italy when no doubt the poet who claims to have invented it could not quite find
sufficient words to express the heights of his fervent exclamation in verse
alone. Must have had his heart broken.

I had a poetry professor in college who claimed that Robert Frost
once said that when he got his literary license, it gave him permission to use
the word “beautiful” three times throughout his career as a poet, and that he
hadn’t yet found the need to use it even once. (Frost may have told my
professor that personally because I could find no such quote upon searching the
web. Then again, as with so many perceived college memories, I could just be
remembering it wrong.)

No matter. I had always approached my use of the exclamation point
in much the same way, to use it sparingly and on occasions where bolding, italicizing or CAPITALIZING words or phrases did not quite do the
trick. F. Scott Fitzgerald supposedly said that using an exclamation point is
akin to laughing at your own jokes, and it was in that spirit that I have
always reserved its use with restrained circumspection. And I honestly can’t
recall ever using one in any news release, op-ed or article I’ve written over
the past 40 years.

And then came the internet.

Or should I say, and then came the internet!

Electronic communications – emails and messaging and texting –
apparently rewrote the rules on the exclamation point, just as it did when it
comes to writing complete sentences, or complete words for that matter, not to
mention other rules of grammar. If we don’t have time to type out a full
thought, it’s little wonder why we can’t summon the effort to find the right
intensity in our words alone.

But here’s the thing – I’m not trying to be some grammar Puritan
about the exclamation point, although I am advocating for some prudent
restraint. Communications via email and texting is most often devoid of tone
and intention (hence the rise of the emoji). I confess to misreading on more
than one occasion incoming emails, wondering if the sender is being sincere or
sarcastic. Consider the distinction between “thank you” and “thank you!” Maybe
it’s just me, but I’ve interpreted the latter as either being enthusiastically
appreciate or not grateful at all, as in “don’t do me any favors!”

When asked what advice he’d give to young people starting out in
the advertising business, the late Mike Hughes of The Martin Agency said,
“never hit Reply All in emails.” Such wisdom from a great man. My own advice is
to young communications professionals is not to never use exclamation points,
but to simply be aware of the ambiguity and unintended interpretations they can
bring.

If you don’t believe me, ask Elaine Benes, whose experience with exclamation points can be a lesson for us all.